Nov 5, 2011

Adventures in Paleo Baking

Today is my daughter's first birthday. It's hard to believe it was a year ago that I was having such mixed emotions - dread of the surgery (placenta previa forced us to have a c-section) and anticipation at meeting my daughter.

Today, though, my mixed emotions are for much lesser reasons. I have never been much of a baker - I mean, I can handle some chocolate chip cookies or a pumpkin pie. But Paleo baking - that is, grain-free, low-sugar baking - is a different kettle of fish. I've only attempted a couple of recipes. But I knew I wanted a special cake for this special day (even if Paige doesn't eat much of it).

I turned to Bill and Haley at The Food Lover's Primal Palate. Well, to their blog, at least. I've had success with a few of their recipes, so looked for something appropriate. I knew I'd found it when I saw their German Chocolate Torte. German chocolate is the favorite cake of both my husband and I; in fact, we had a traditional German chocolate cake at our wedding instead of a big white confection. The Paleo version isn't quite the same, but it features the same flavors.

Baking the cake itself went well. My 4-year-old son helped me by cracking eggs and mixing together the dry ingredients. The cake looked great once it had cooled and been plated. It looked pretty good at the ganache stage as well, even though I used 3/4 cup of chopped pecans rather than the cup called for in the recipe. Oh, how I wish I'd taken a photo of this stage.

Something went dreadfully wrong with the whipped topping, though. I suspect I whipped the cream too long, which will teach me to multi-task by doing dishes instead of keeping an eye on the task at hand. It ended up with the consistency of whipped butter. I might have run to the store for another cup of whipping cream, but it still tasted good. And she's only a year old - she won't know the difference.

I toasted the coconut...just because I wanted to. No real reason.

I also piped the top with the left-over ganache. Obviously, I shouldn't give up my day job ;-)

The birthday girl is taking a nap, but I'm hopeful she will enjoy her mom's attempt at the perfect first birthday cake.